It’s election day in the US and where I live in the southern Tulsa suburb of Broken Arrow, that means it’s likely that McCain will have a big turn out. While Pam was taking my 5th grader to school with a few other classmates early for their 5th grade choir, the conversation was around the elementary school’ mock election. “McCain will win,”said one student. “No one will vote for Obama.” Another 10 year old chimed in. “There are a couple kids who will vote for Obama, they are always talking about him.” The first kid responded. “Yeah, but they’re weird.”
Nice. My wife tells me this story when she gets home in the kitchen as my 7 year old comes into the room and tells us he’s voting for Obama. Interesting. It’s one of those moments filled with temptations as a parent. Moments to tell you child, to be quiet about who they are voting for, so they won’t get picked on. And then reality comes crashing in, that this would be the absolute worst thing to tell him. To hide what you believe in because it might not be popular. This isn’t what I want for my kids.
Then later, Pam and I have arranged to do tag-team vote because my 3 year old daughter isn’t in school. I’ve voted and sitting in the minivan with Mikayla, who’s strapped in her carseat, still in her nightgown. Pam is inside waiting in line. I’m spending my time reading and talking with Mikayla, when I notice an elderly man in my passanger side rearview mirror. He’s sitting in the grass with his legs draped over the tall curb and he’s breathing heavy. Heart-attack heavy. There’s a small woman in her 40’s attending to him.
At this moment I’m playing catch up. Questions are racing. Do these people know each other? Is he just relaxing and waiting for a friend who is voting inside? I begin to look for details. I see people walking by, within feet of the two of them. They don’t stop. They keep walking in to vote. I decide I’m getting out to check on them, but Mikayla’s in her PJ’s. So I look again. The woman has left the man and is walking to her car.
Is everything ok now? Does she think he’s okay to be left alone?
I sit back down in the car, but continue to watch the man. How he’s breathing, the look on his face. Something was still not right. I could tell, even from the distance I was sitting. The woman returned and took out a bag with a blood pressure gauge. She was a nurse and she was getting his vitals. This made me feel better, but I felt there was a need for more help and I start counting people walking by.
It’s a busy polling place. No less than 75 people walked by to vote, or to leave. Within feet of an elderly man getting his vitals taken there on the curb. I can wait no more. I tell Mikayla to sit tight, and lock the doors behind me (I’m only walking 30 feet to where the man is) and I ask, “Is everything okay?”
The old man tells me his story. He says he was walking into vote when he got dizzy and faint, struggling to keep his feet underhim, he fell over the curb in the grass. The nurse said, his vitals were settling down. Together we stood him up. He needed assistance for a moment. The nurse took him into vote.
I sat back down for a moment in awe of the moment. I can’t really describe what I felt at that point. There was a mix of anger, sadness, frustration and hope. It occurred to me.
Voting is the lowest form of citizenship a person can actually participate in. Voting, for all the commercials telling you how you are changing the world with your vote just might make you feel good, but are misleading. The fact is, if all you do today is vote, you have failed the rest of us and you have failed yourself.
How can 75 people walk by an elderly man in distress and do nothing. Nothing except vote. Friends, voting is less important than your involvment.
I don’t care who you voted for.
If you voted for Obama, you can’t be dependant upon him to change the world to make it want you want it to be. That’s not engagement. If you are interested in helping the poor through the government, then you’d better be doing it yourself. A vote for Obama isn’t a vote for change. You helping a elderly man on your way into the polling place is the change you are looking for.
If you voted for McCain, and you don’t think that it’s the job of government to care for the poor. Then you’d better get off your butt and do something. You talk a good game, and I know you had socialism, but you have a poor track record of actually making a difference. No government has kept you from making a difference on this level. So quit crying foul and stop for the elderly man who needs you. For all your talk about not wanting someone else in control of your government, you seem pretty happy just to vote and then complain when things don’t go your way. I know you want government to leave you alone. We can tell. You want the rest of us to leave you alone too.
I’m not going to tell you who I voted for, but I’ll say this. We need more citizens in our world and less folks who only want to be voters.
So, if you are a 10 year old voting at the elementary school, or an adult voting at your polling place, remember what it means to be a citizen of the planet. To love your neighbor as yourself.
Labels: Family, Politics
